


Proceed With Caution

by Unforgotten



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, First Meetings, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced/Implied Alcoholism, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik is a former soldier who has a service dog for his PTSD. Charles is this nosy guy in a wheelchair he meets in the park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proceed With Caution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearl_o](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/gifts).



> Based on something you said in tales chat one time about wanting to read a fic where Erik is an ex-soldier who has a PTSD service dog. This was a while ago, so I hope you're still into that! XD
> 
> Thanks to cygnaut, firstlightofeos, and listerinezero for all your encouragement and suggestions.

It rained last night, making it clear and bright out today, not to mention fifteen degrees cooler than it's been for the last two weeks. It's the perfect day for a walk, so Erik hurries up with his errands and heads over to the park, Lady walking behind him the way he always tells her to when they're out.

He's had her for almost two years, but he's still not over how much of a difference it makes to have someone to watch his back. How good it feels to clear his mind during a long walk, the tension seeping out of his muscles as he focuses on cataloguing the metal around him, from the steel beams of the buildings to the eyelets on people's shoes. Cars going by in the street, keys and change jingling in pockets, glasses frames and manhole covers and railings on stairways. Everything within his range that could be useful, a running list of could-be weapons. It's a habit that's always comforted him, even as it's made a few of his shrinks over the years blanch when he mentioned it during their first session (at least before they remembered the part where he's never been able to use his ability during a flashback or panic attack. Hell, it's always been a little shaky when he's scared, or even just nervous. That's one of the reasons he never tried to get into special ops or anything like that when he was in the Army. If he ever throws a car at someone's head, he'll know what he's doing, and he'll be pissed off when he does it).

He walks briskly until he gets to the park, then slows down in case Lady needs to go. Looking back at her, he realizes he forgot to take off her vest right as someone asks, "Is that a seeing eye dog?"

Questions like that are exactly why Erik keeps Lady's vest in his backpack except when he needs to go anywhere pets aren't allowed. The people at the bank are a lot less likely to challenge him when she's wearing her vest with its 'Service Dog Access Required' and 'Working Do Not Pet' patches, but it's not worth it to have her wear it around outside. Too many people want to ask him too many stupid things. If they can pet her. What her job is. What's wrong with him anyway, he looks so normal. Maybe she's not really a service dog; maybe she's a pet he's trying to pass off as one. He got tired of shutting that shit down by the end of the first month.

He turns toward the speaker, a balding man sitting at a chess table in a wheelchair which Erik added to his list a few minutes ago. Usually, he ignores questions like that, or says, 'No,' and walks away. Sometimes, when he's in a good mood and feels like what a stupid question really needs is a stupid answer, he says, 'Yes,' dryly, and stares at them until they catch on.

This time, though, he thought he'd taken the vest off, and he wasn't expecting any stupid comments, and he ends up going with the kneejerk reaction, snapping, "I don't know, does your dick still work?"

The balding man's eyes widen. His mouth drops open. He makes a loud gasping sound, then another, and his face turns so red he looks like he's about to have an aneurysm. Then, just when Erik's about to ask if he's okay, he starts laughing. And keeps laughing. He laughs so hard tears run down his cheeks, and he ends up with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, shoulders shaking as he howls.

"I get that sort of thing a lot, you know," he says, wiping his eyes on his sleeve after he finally calms down a minute or two later. "But I have to say, this is the first time anyone's ever asked me anything like that out of _spite_."

"Good for you." It wasn't supposed to be funny. Erik was making a point. And, now that he's pretty sure he doesn't need to call an ambulance, he can leave.

"Oh, don't go yet," the balding man protests. He grins at Erik ruefully, his face still red. "I apologize for my rudeness. Can we start over?"

Erik doesn't even know this guy. He has no reason to want to. "No."

He turns to leave just as the balding man says, "But you could get to know me. I know you." When Erik glances back to give him a flat look, he adds, "Well. Sort of. I'm a telepath, you see. I caught a glimpse of your mind while I was sitting here people-watching, and I just had to talk to you. You're a mutant as well, yes? Telekinesis, is it?"

For a second there, Erik thought he was working up to some sort of weird telepath come-on line about how fascinating Erik's mind is. He'd have had even less patience for that than anything else that's happened in the last three minutes. He has it on good authority that his mind is terrifying, full of jagged edges and unsecured heavy objects; someone might be drawn to it if they enjoyed rubbernecking, but that's it. But if it's his mutation that's the draw, well, that's different.

"Metallokinesis." Erik pulls a quarter out of his pocket, levitates it above his palm. It's been a while since anyone asked him about his mutation instead of his dog, and he finds himself showing off, weaving the coin in and out of the spaces between his spread fingers, then digging through his other pocket and coming out with a few dimes and nickels to add to the mix.

The balding man grins widely again. "Lovely," he says. "That's lovely. Do you play chess?"

"No," Erik says, not that there's any point in lying to a telepath. He hesitates for about one more second before the desire to connect with another mutant wins out over wanting to be left alone. He walks over to the table and sits down across from the balding man, trying to remember how small talk works. "I mean, I haven't really played since I was a kid."

He doesn't add that he hadn't been that good at it then, or that he quit forever in a rage when he was thirteen and his sister Ruth, then eight, kept trouncing him, then bragging about it to everyone in their family, not to mention all his friends.

He should probably call her at some point.

The balding man's mouth twitches. "I'm not much good at it myself, but I can usually hold my own." He pauses, as if for effect, then says, "As long as I cheat."

"Oh, as long as you cheat," Erik repeats dryly, amusement winning out over annoyance for the moment. His kids all cheat, too, though they also all lie about it, so it's not like he's played anything with anyone in years where the other person didn't cheat. He wouldn't know how to handle an even playing ground.

"I want to go first. To give myself the best advantage, you know," the balding man continues. "I'm Charles, by the way. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop fixating on my hairline now. I do have other attributes, you know."

"Erik." He ignores Charles' proffered hand in favor of removing Lady's vest, stuffing it into his pack, and telling her to lie down. She settles on the ground by his feet, where she'll stay, quiet and calm and watchful, until he tells her otherwise or starts to panic.

By the time he looks up, Charles still hasn't managed to move. He's holding a pawn in his hand, lips pursed as he looks at the board even though he only has two options. Three, if you count putting the pawn back where it was to begin with, which he does a few seconds later in favor of picking up another pawn.

"Where would you most prefer I not move?" he asks, glancing at Erik.

"I really don't care."

"All right."

Three minutes later, he finally moves his knight, and it's Erik's turn. He pushes a pawn forward two spaces at random. Charles mutters something that sounds like, "Tricky," and takes about four more minutes to decide to capture Erik's pawn.

Affronted at his nerve, Erik leans forward and studies the board for the best way to retaliate.

The game picks up after that, pieces being captured in swift succession, until the end's in sight. Things slows down again then, as Charles goes back to considering every move for a few minutes. Erik chases him across the board, enjoying the upper hand even as he's vaguely aware that he probably should have been able to checkmate him by now considering that all Charles has left is his king while Erik managed to hold onto more than half of his pieces.

"Again?" Erik asks, when he finally does checkmate him.

"Absolutely," Charles says, but then he looks at his wristwatch, and his face falls. "Oh. Actually, I can't, I'm sorry. I have a meeting I need to get to." He starts grabbing chess pieces by the handful and dropping them into the case in his lap. "But we could meet back here next week? The same time next Saturday would work for me. Maybe even a little earlier." Before Erik can say it's definitely not a date, Charles zips up his chess case, says, "So I guess I'll see you then," pivots around and wheels off at a good clip.

Erik's not about to go running after him. He watches him go for a few seconds, then says, "Let's go," and he and Lady resume their walk.

*

Erik's shrink has been giving him shit lately about how he needs to stop using his dog as a barrier between himself and the rest of the world, and start using her to integrate into it. As if being able to walk down the street without having a panic attack isn't progress. As if holding down a job for the first time in years doesn't mean anything. But even though she's been on him about it for months, her eyes widen and she actually pauses buffing her nails when he mentions he talked to someone new for more than the thirty seconds it would have taken to yell at him and move on. 

It couldn't be clearer how low her expectations were. Even though Erik already knew that—he's never done well with concern or sympathy, and purposely sought out someone he could have a more antagonistic doctor/patient relationship with—he seethes about it the rest of the week. On Saturday, he heads to the park out of enough spite that, although he probably would have gone anyway, he doesn't have to spend any time worrying about his own motives.

Charles is already there, at the same table as last week. He waves Erik over.

"You made it!" Charles beams at Erik like he's his long-lost brother and not some random guy he met off the street a week ago. It's weird, but a little flattering, too. When Erik sits down, he says, "We could play chess again if you'd like, or we could do something else. I brought a deck of cards, if you'd prefer that."

Despite his big win last week, Erik still isn't all that into chess. "Sure. Do you know how to play Texas Hold'em?"

Charles doesn't. They don't actually know any of the same games, and Erik's not going to spend all day explaining the rules to anything complicated, so they end up playing War. It's relatively mindless, the only thing you really need to know to play is how to count, so it only takes a minute for Charles to get the idea.

"What breed of dog is she?" Charles asks.

Erik gives him a flat look.

"I'm limiting myself to one dog question a week, promise."

Erik sighs. "She's a labrador/poodle mix."

Charles brightens at him, like he's the most charming thing. "Oh, a labradoodle!"

"— _No_."

Everyone comes up with the labradoodle thing, no matter how firmly or how often Erik insists that she's a labrador/poodle mix. He's considered telling people she's just a mutt, but then they'd think he has a thing for ridiculous poofy dogs. If everything else had been equal, he would have wanted a german shepherd. But Anya's allergic to dogs, and even though she had all those allergy shots when she was little and seems to be okay now, he wanted to be careful. What would be the point in being able to go places and be around people if his living, breathing medical equipment made it impossible for him to see his own daughter? No, thanks.

"All right," Charles says, still grinning.

A minute later, a gust of wind blows half the cards off the table, scattering them all over the ground.

Watching his playing cards skitter away like leaves, Charles says, "Do you think your dog could fetch those?"

"No." That's not her job. It's not Erik's job either, but he bends down and starts picking them up anyway.

"Some seeing eye dog you are," Charles says, speaking directly to Lady for the first time.

That kind of thing normally gets Erik's back up. He doesn't like it when other people try to get her attention. She doesn't need the distraction; the only person who needs to be interacting with her when she's on the job is him. But when he looks back at Charles to say something, Charles isn't waving at her or snapping his fingers, not trying to get her to notice him at all; his eyes are on Erik, and he's grinning again, looking way too pleased with himself. 

He probably thinks he's being cute, that he can get away with anything just because he has a nice smile. Instead of yelling at him, which he definitely would have if Charles had actually been trying to get Lady's attention, Erik exhales and goes back to picking up the cards.

Their next game goes a little more smoothly, both of them holding their stack of cards instead of leaving them out on the table. Charles has been hemorrhaging cards steadily for a while, losing half the battles and most of the wars, when he looks at his watch and once again says, "Well, I need to get to my meeting. See you again next week."

*

The week after that, they decide to try checkers, and they're halfway through their game when Erik says, "I won't be able to make it next week. I'm going to have my kids all weekend."

For the first couple years after his divorce, Erik didn't see them that much, though he always called at least every few weeks. When he got the dog, his objective was to take back as much as he could of the life he used to have, starting with being around for his kids. He got a job, moved into an apartment he wouldn't be ashamed for them to see, had about a hundred conversations with Magda about how things were going, and it all came together. 

He gets them now for a handful of weekends during the school year, a month during the summer, and every other winter break. It's time he guards jealously, not because Magda won't work with him—she's gone out of her way to work with him, up to and including telling him to skip the child support for a couple months back when he moved apartments so he could buy some decent furniture and have the kids over sooner—but because he doesn't trust anything in his life enough to be able to take it for granted.

"How many kids do you have?" Charles asks.

"Three." He gets his wallet out. The facing photo in the plastic picture holder is from five years ago, back when Anya had that gap-toothed smile and the twins still looked more like each other than their own individual people. He flips past that one to the one behind it, which is from about six months ago, which he shows to Charles. "Anya's thirteen. Pietro and Wanda are six."

"Ah," Charles says, examining the picture. "They look like good kids."

"They are," Erik says. He can feel his own expression softening, the way it always does when the subject of his kids comes up.

"I have just the one myself." Charles digs around in his pocket and comes out with his own wallet, taking out a picture of a dark-haired boy who looks just like him, except younger and with more hair. "David. He's ten. He and his mother are in Paris now, though it was Israel for a while there. He's a telepath, like me. Smart as a whip, too."

*

Two weeks later, Erik gets to the park at the usual time, but Charles isn't waiting at their table. Erik looks all around, and there's no Charles at any of the chess tables, or in the immediate vicinity; he scans the area, and there's no approaching wheelchair he can't yet see.

He walks away feeling amazingly stupid. They've met a grand total of three times, but he took if for granted that Charles would be there. He's been looking forward to this all week, and Charles has always seemed so delighted to see him, spent so much time smiling at him that it never occurred to Erik that he might not show. Somehow, he neglected to take into account that most people have larger lives than his own, can find something better to do with a Saturday afternoon.

It's another nice, clear day out, if on the chilly side. A brisk walk is just what Erik needs to shake this off, but he's not feeling it. He only walks for about fifteen minutes before he changes his mind. He may as well just go home.

When he's about to pass by the chess tables on his way back out of the park, he sees Charles sitting at their usual table. He's talking on a cellphone, and doesn't appear to see Erik. He's still on the phone when Erik sits down across from him.

"Yes, I know," Charles says into the phone, sounding weary. He looks tired, too, the circles under his eyes darker than usual. It's weirdly distressing, seeing him look stressed out, or maybe it's just that Erik's so used to him smiling or grinning all the time. "I'm not going to drink. I don't even want to, really." He listens for a minute, rolls his eyes. "Yes, I was planning on it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes, I am aware of that. One day at a time, et cetera. I know." He glances at Erik, frowns, mouths, something that looks like, 'Sorry. One second,' then says, "Look, I really have to go. I'll talk to you later." Tapping his fingers on the table, he listens for a few seconds. "Yes, I'll be there. Thanks, Moira. 'Bye now."

He puts his phone away, then says, "I'm sorry about that. And sorry I'm late. I had a meeting earlier. It took me longer to get here afterward than I thought it would."

"That's fine," Erik says gruffly, lest Charles get the impression that Erik felt even a little lost without him. Erik's always been more likely to push people away than scramble to keep them around if there's somewhere else they'd rather be.

The other times they've met, Erik's been the quiet one, but today Charles is the one who's distant and quiet. They play an entire game of dominoes without him asking a single nosy question about Erik's dog, his life, or even how it went with his kids last weekend. (Anya was in a mood and spent the entire weekend snubbing everyone in favor of texting with her friends. Pietro kept shouting at the TV whenever he died on the game he was playing, and eventually threw the controller at the floor; after Erik locked up the PS3, he spent the rest of the weekend whining about it. Wanda threatened to barf if she had to eat her beans at dinner Saturday night; she must have been serious this time, because barf she did ten minutes later. Erik has rarely been as relieved to return the kids to Magda as he was last Sunday.)

They've just started a second game when Charles sighs, glances at Erik's face then back at the dominoes, then says, "I apologize if I seem distracted. Today is the anniversary of my run-in with a ditch. The ditch won, as you could no doubt have guessed. It was seven years ago, and I haven't walked since."

"I'm sorry," Erik says. He wonders if that's a rehearsed speech. It certainly sounds canned.

Charles gives a sour little laugh. "Thank you." After a second, he adds, "That's refreshing, actually."

He spends the rest of the game glancing at Erik, and looks like he wants to say something a couple times. In the end, all he says, at the end of their second game, is, "Well, I need to get to my meeting. I'll see you next week."

Erik hasn't spent a lot of time trying to figure out who has business meetings on Saturday afternoons, especially in the jeans and faded black T-shirts Charles seems to prefer—but he has a pretty good idea now of what's actually going on there. He does a little googling when he gets home, and it only takes a few minutes for him to find out that there's an AA group that meets just down the block from the park, about ten minutes after Charles usually excuses himself.

He wonders about what he should say, but it doesn't take long to decide he's not going to say anything. For all Charles' nosy questions about Lady, he's never asked Erik anything truly personal, and the least he can do is extend the same courtesy back.

*

Two weeks after that, Charles is already waiting at their table when Erik gets there half an hour earlier than he usually does. When he sees Erik, his entire face lights up so much that Erik can't help smiling back, just a little.

Charles says, "Erik! I wasn't sure you were coming. I'm so glad you did. Hello."

"Hi," Erik says. He sits down across from Charles, not looking him in the eye, and looks down at his hands as he says, "I was sick last weekend." It's true, but even though Erik was diagnosed with PTSD years ago, saying it like that still feels like a lie, some bullshit excuse he has to give because he's too weak to get it together. "That's why I wasn't here."

He had a flashback at the grocery store last Saturday morning: something moved wrong, glinting out of the corner of his eye, sending him back to Iraq even though all it was was some woman adjusting the purse on her shoulder. After Lady brought him back, he made sure he hadn't hurt anyone, then went home as fast as he could.

When they got there, he had Lady search for intruders twice in case she was wrong the first time, then spent the rest of the day marathoning old Spider-Man cartoons with seventy pounds of dog in his lap, tensing up every time he heard a door slam outside and wondering if he's ever going to stop doing this shit. When the afternoon rolled around, he thought about Charles, but there was never any chance of him so much as leaving the building, nevermind trying to make it all the way to the park.

"Oh," Charles says. "I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you're feeling better."

"I'm fine."

"I really thought I might have scared you off," Charles says.

"You didn't." If anything, it helps, knowing Charles is kind of fucked up too, even if it's a different kind of fucked up.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it," Charles says. "Well, all I brought with me today is chess, if that's all right? I think that's what we're supposed to play at these tables, anyway. There may even be a sign saying so."

"That's fine."

"'Fine' being the word of the day?" Charles' voice is gentle, teasing in a way that no longer makes Erik bristle. He doesn't know when that happened, but it's been a long time since he's been comfortable with anything like that from anyone who isn't family.

"Fine," Erik agrees, a grumble that nonetheless makes Charles smile.

Halfway through their first game, Charles pulls a pen and a napkin out of somewhere, scribbles a phone number, and hands the napkin to Erik. "Next time you can't make it, would you mind texting me so I know? Don't call if you can help it; I detest talking on the phone. But texting is good."

Erik glances at the napkin and then pockets it. "You were talking on the phone the other week."

"Well, she was still within range. Disembodied voices are one thing, but disembodied voices without a mind to go with them are something else altogether," Charles says earnestly. "It's creepy, that's what it is."

Erik laughs, surprising himself. "I'll remember that."

A little later, after Charles leaves for his meeting, Erik walks for a while, then sits on a park bench and tries to figure out if his phone has texting or not. It's just a little pay-as-you-go flip phone, three years old, a holdover from the days when he couldn't pay most of his bills from one month to the next but needed a way for his family to reach him all the time. He's never done anything with it other than make phone calls, but apparently he can connect to the internet, download games, and, yes, send text messages.

He thinks for a minute, then laboriously types out a message to Charles, saying, _This is Erik. Do you want to go out for coffee after your meeting?_ He hits send before he can second-guess himself, talk himself out of it by reminding himself that just because someone gives you their number for emergencies doesn't mean they want to hear from you when it's not one, and that just because Charles always seems happy to see him in the park on Saturdays doesn't mean Charles wants to see him anywhere else. Charles is always smiling at him, but just because it comes off as flirty a lot of the time doesn't mean he actually meant it that way. Maybe he's not even into guys. Maybe he's into guys, but not into Erik. It's been a really long time since Erik was interested in anyone, longer than that since he was willing to do something about it; maybe he can't read this stuff anymore. Not that he's ever spent a lot of time trying to read this stuff in the first place...

The answer comes less than a minute later, interrupting Erik's train of thought about whether or not Charles will realize that the coffee invitation is an interested thing and not just a friend thing: _or you could come to my place and I could make you coffee_

That means he wants to have sex, right? Erik may not get out all that much, but even he knows that.

Feeling a little like he has whiplash, Erik texts back, _Ok._

He gets four more texts from Charles in quick succession:

_fyi it still works_

_and I'm not talking about my coffeemaker_

_though that too_

_I have to turn my phone off, we'll talk later_

It takes Erik a minute to get what Charles is talking about. When he does, he sits there for a while longer trying to think of something to say to that, but all he ends up going with is, _Ok._

*

 

Later, Erik rolls onto his back, gulping down air as his ass tries to decide how it feels about his first gay experience. He always figured he might eventually have one, but considering how few and far between his heterosexual experiences have been since his divorce, he wasn't exactly holding his breath.

"Mmm," Charles says lazily, with the same satisfaction with which he referred to Erik as huge (three times) and lovely (fourteen times, nine of them in the last couple minutes).

As Charles wipes the mess off his chest and ties up the condom, then throws both that and the tissue in the trashcan by the bed. Erik gets out of bed (his thighs also trying to decide how to feel about his first gay experience), pulls his underwear back on, and goes over to the door to let Lady in.

"Really?" Charles says, pulling the sheet up. "I don't think your seeing eye dog really needs to see this."

Lady's been off-duty since they got to Charles' apartment, and now she trots in, greets Erik, then looks expectantly back and forth between him and the bed.

"Do you care if she gets on the bed?" Erik asks.

"I suppose not," Charles says, though he looks a little skeptical.

Erik pats his hand on the bed a couple times, and Lady jumps up and immediately starts sniffing Charles' face, the first time she's so much as acknowledged his existence.

Charles raises his hands, glances at Erik.

"You can pet her," Erik says, sitting on the side of the bed. He hopes Charles appreciates what a rare opportunity this is. The only other people who get to pet her are his kids, or sometimes his parents.

Charles pats her awkwardly a couple times. "I expected her to be softer." He pats her a few more times, then puckers up and starts making smooching sounds.

Lady rears back disdainfully, sneezes, and leans against Erik. He scratches her behind the ears, and she leans into that, and it doesn't take long before she's rolling around on her back, mouth open, teeth gleaming, growling rhythmically like an idiot.

"—What's she doing? Is she having a seizure?" Charles asks.

"She's being a dog," Erik says, not looking at Charles, trying not to let on that he feels more exposed like this than he did with Charles inside him. Everyone who meets him sees him with his dog, but there's hardly anyone who's seen them like this. His kids. His parents and his sister. That's about it.

Then, to Lady, Erik says, "Go get it," repeating it several times in an excited tone of voice, until she flails upright and casts around for a toy to bring to him. But all her toys are back at his apartment, so she ends up grabbing one of Charles' dirty socks from the foot of the bed instead, shoving it at him to try to get him to throw it.

"Really?" Charles sighs, but he sounds more resigned than anything else.

*

Still later, Erik's tugging his boots back on when Charles says, "You could stay over, if you'd like. I have an extra toothbrush in the bathroom." Erik freezes, and he must look like a deer in the headlights or something, because then he adds, "You can say no. It's not a trap."

Erik's not sure he wants to say no, but he knows he doesn't want to say yes. Staying here tonight would mean they'd have to get into certain things. He could skip a lot of it if he had to, but what he wouldn't be able to gloss over would be the way he lashes out in his sleep sometimes. He'd have to sleep on the couch. It would be a really bad idea for Charles to try to wake him. Someone could get hurt, and that someone would be Charles.

He doesn't know where this could be headed, but he's not ready to go there.

"Not yet," he says. "I mean, not tonight."

"All right." Charles smiles at him. "I'll see you next Saturday, then?"

"It's a date," Erik says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Proceed with Caution (the good dog remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1593194) by [Red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red)




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